Category Archives: Books

On Monday, I got an email from Jean Ann VK asking me if I’d like to be the GardenBookstore.net LIVE FACEBOOK AUTHOR INTERVIEW this week. Now, either they’ve run out of other awesome authors and finally were like “ok, we guess we’ll ask Katie” or they think I have top secret information to share with all y’all (I live in North Carolina).

It is probably a combination of both. I am super-flattered, and can’t wait to participate.

What I have to Offer You

I’m not a “book author.” Not really. I ghostwrite books, but I don’t have my name on them. (Unless you look through the acknowledgments.) I’m usually listed as “major help,” “editor,” “reader,” “tyrannical fanatic,” or something like that.

I’m more an author of online content: blogs, newsletters, websites, facebook pages, twitter, etc. I feel that twitter was MADE for me, or I was made for it. My life is much more complete with twitter. But, I digress.

WHY YOU SHOULD TUNE IN FOR THE INTERVIEW?

I thought that all of my adoring fans (all three of you: Hi NATALIE, SUSAN and SHELLEY!) knew about my history working in botanic gardens. Apparently, I have one adoring fan that did not know about that. (LAURA-have you or have you not been following my every move since birth? Oh, I’ve only known you for about a year. K. You’re absolved.) Working in and managing public gardens around the United States is how I learned a lot of what I hope to share with everyone today.

Have you ever visited a beautiful botanical garden and said to yourself “This is really pretty, but I could NEVER make my garden look like that?” I’m here to tell you that you CAN. If you want to. Even if you just want your front flowerbed to make a BIG SPLASH, I’ll tell you how we do it in the public garden world.

The Practical Side of Gardening

I am a practical gardener. I don’t have a lot of time to spend in my garden, but I spend all day looking out AT my front garden while I write. So, I want it to look good. I want it to look good, even if I can only spent about one full day, every other month, working in it. (With husband on standby to run to the garden center for supplies if I need him to. Which he is always pleased to do, because he likes to shop–particularly at garden centers. We have three birdbaths.)

I don’t want to give everything away here in my blog post, but I’m hoping that you will ask me questions about some of these topics so that I can share my hard-earned tips with you!

Here are the winners of the big BOOK giveaway! If you’re a winner, please email me your name, address, and who you’d like Christine to sign the book to. Email me at ktplant “at” gmail “dot” com, so that I can have Christine autograph your book, and send it to you.

Winners:

Shelley Dawson Hendershot (I believe Shelley commented on every SINGLE blog, and put it on facebook about seventeen times, so she had LOTS of chances to win!)

Susan L. Morrison

Rebecca Sweet

Laura Matthews

Eleanor Erickson

(These winners were randomly drawn from the pool of entries that followed the contest instructions below. Some of them also wrote blog posts, but they tweeted, facebooked or told their friends about it, according to instructions! Thank you for playing! Enjoy the books!)

TODAY IS THE BIG DAY!

Claire de Lune, by Christine Johnson, published by Simon Pulse, is NOW at bookstores near you! Werewolves are also lurking on blogs near your corner of the internet, too. Today we’re having a big blog book tour to celebrate the release of Claire de Lune at blogs near and far. Here’s the list of participating blogs:

Take the Tour, Comment, and Come back Here to Win

Want to read about werewolves in the workplace? How about surfing lessons for werewolf wahines? All that and more is covered in the big blog book tour. Check out the blogs, leave comments, and, learn more about the book, itself:

Win a Copy of Claire de Lune

Christine was kind enough to donate three copies of Claire de Lune with a signed book plates to our Blog Book Tour. Would you like to win this book? (You do want to win it. It is GREAT!) You have several options to enter the book giveaway:

Become a fan of Claire de Lune on Facebook

Tweet about the book and/or blog tour with the hashtag #clairedelune

Upload a picture of Claire de Lune in the “wild” (at your local bookstore) to the Claire de Lune Fan Page on Facebook, or to twitter with the hashtag #clairedelune

Comment on one of the participating blogs listed here, and then come back HERE and tell us where you commented! (so I can find you–some of these blogs are REALLY popular and get LOTS of comments.)

You can do as MANY of those as you want, as MANY times as you want. Each “activity” will enter you one time into the drawing for a book. I have THREE copies to give away. Please complete your activities by 11:59 pm EST on Tuesday, May 18th, to enter.

I’ll gather up all of the entries and select three winners using random.org If you’re really active, it might take me a couple of days to get all of the entries together, so be patient 🙂

Find out the winners of the books on this blog no later than Friday, May 21.

HAVE FUN and thank you for spreading the word about this great new book!

The novel Claire de Lune, by Christine Johnson, will be published by Simon Pulse, a division of Simon and Schuster, on TUESDAY, MAY 18th.

I’ve already read the book, and I LOVED it! It’s Johnson’s first novel, and geared for the Young Adult market, but I think that lots of groups will find it interesting: Moms & Daughters, book clubs, teens, people who liked Twilight, etc. The book is evocative and atmospheric. I really FELT like I was in the woods with the wolves. It was also fun to read about being in love for the first time. I wasn’t a werewolf, and I wasn’t in love with one, but, I gotta say, that time felt pretty tumultuous. You can order the book on Amazon, HERE, or call your favorite local indie shop and ask them to order it for you!

Big non-book Blog Book Tour

To have a little bit of fun with the launch (because I grew up with Christine), I decided to coordinate a big blog book tour on NON book related blogs. On Tuesday, May 18th, you’ll be able to visit the blogs below for a fun werewolf post! Be sure to visit and comment at each blog. It should be fun to see everyone’s take on the werewolf situation.

And, it is NOT too late to participate! If you’d like to join the fun, write a werewolf post for your blog and schedule it for May 18th. THEN, email me at ktplant “at” gmail “dot” com with your blog URL so I can add you to the list.